Saturday, August 30, 2008

ALEFYT

Well, today I started the Master's Program with a 10-4 'retreat' on Houghton's campus. We discussed Helmut Thielicke's "A Little Exercise for Young Theologians" which was a good way to start an academic theological semester. The author warns theological students against pride and non impacting information. Here are some good quotes:

"Anyone who deals with truth - as we theologians certainly do - succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. But love is the opposite of the will to possess. it is self-giving."

"The man who studies theology, and especially he who studies dogmatics, might watch carefully whether he increasingly does not think in the third rather than in the second person (about God)."

"(Theology) can be sacred or diabolical. That depends upon the hands and hearts which further it. But which of the two it is cannot necessarily be seen by the fact that in one case it is orthodox and in the other heretical. I don't believe that God is a fussy faultfinder in dealing with theological ideas... Even an orthodox theologian can be spiritually dead, while perhaps a heretic crawls on forbidden bypaths to the sources of life."